Emergency funds for targeted journalist unable to get medical treatment

Reporters Without Borders is providing temporary financial assistance to Awa Ehoura, a journalist who presented the 8 p.m. news programme on state-owned Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI) when Laurent Gbagbo was president.

Like other prominent people regarded as supporters of the former president, her bank accounts have been frozen since his fall from power in early 2011. And, as a result of being suspended by RTI, she ceased to have medical insurance cover on 12 January, so she has been left without any way to get treatment for her diabetes.

As a result, Reporters Without Borders yesterday sent her funds to cover her medical bills and the medicine she needs to buy.

“We have often enough said what we thought of the role RTI frequently played as a propaganda tool,” the organization said. “But Awa Ehoura is a journalist, not a criminal. It is unreasonable and unjust that such a sanction intended to punish her supposed support for the former regime has left her in such dire straits. We are sending her this money as a humanitarian gesture.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “The treatment suffered by this journalist should alert public opinion and the government. The way she has been marginalized is incompatible with the need for justice and national reconciliation. It is time to lift the order freezing assets for those who were unjustly targeted.”